Member of Parliament

15 minutes. For some members, they will need all of the eight minutes to get from their office to the lobbies. This will then draw them away from their office, for far more than the 15 minutes it takes for their vote to be recorded. Margot James had an even worse experience as her office was too far away to easily reach the voting lobbies in time, so she would frequently work in the library to ensure she could make a vote on time. This is an obvious inconvenience, to Members but also to their…

In Iceland, the government has a presidential role, but the parliament also elects a prime minister. In the Executive Branch, the president serves as a figurehead for the people and a diplomat to other leaders. However, the parliament elects a prime minister who has the main executive power and acts as the chief executive alongside his cabinet. Similar to the UK and other parliamentary systems…

With just 5% of the members from a minority background and only 20% being female (House of Lords Library, 2014), this in comparison to 51% population of female, making it unrepresentative and undemocratic (Office of National Statistics, 2011). The key argument to show the House…

France being a republic type government, it gave the French congress power to make changes in the constitution for the two chambers of parliament. Furthermore, France is divided into branches of government which is; the executive, legislative, and judiciary branch. The Executive branch is runned by the president being the head of state and head of the executive. The president has a total…

and Russia’s semi-presidential republic. In the British democracy, the legislature has a powerful role in the government, including checks on the executive in contrary in Russia the Duma is weak in comparison to the Russian president. The British parliament is the strongest branch of the British democracy by constitutional law, but in Russia, the president is in control. I argue that without a strong legislative branch checking the executive branch a democracy will break down leading to the…

Canada’s past Prime Minister Stephen Harper. These changes within parliament allowed for the Prime Minister to appoint everyone who sits in office. This helps push forward the Prime Minister’s personal agenda with minimal resistance. The Prime Minister has control over who is appointed into office, who…

On the back of each dollar bill in circulation, the Great Seal of the United States appears. Made up of two symbols; one, an eagle clutching a scroll, olive branch, and arrows; the other, an unfinished pyramid with an all seeing eye. In Gordon Wood’s The American Revolution, he rhetorically asks, “how many Americans today know what the pyramid and eye on the Great Seal mean” (99). While most Americans today may look past these icons, both sides of the Great Seal signify the distinctly American…

it, gender equality will never be reached. Until girls can say that they want to be president when they grow up without people looking at them pityingly, until women who work twice as hard as men in their same position aren’t just considered token members of political groups, true equality will never…

How effective is Parliament at carrying out its various functions? Parliament’s three main functions are representation, scrutiny and legislation. The effectiveness of representation would be that parliament and the parties within represent their constituents and sections of society and voice their opinions and queries often. The effectiveness of scrutiny in parliament involves the studying of a proposed legislation in detail to ensure that it is in the nation’s interest and that it is in…

characteristics across their democratic institutions, which makes any difference significantly magnified. With these two countries, the central difference that exists across their democratic institutions is the performance of the Christian Democrats. Members of the CDU in Luxembourg have significantly outperformed those in Sweden. During the period from 1994 to 2010 in parliamentary elections, the Christian Democrats in Sweden average 7.65% of the vote while that same party in Luxembourg…